Thursday, November 15, 2007

It states : " I do not tolerate the censorship of ideas in any country and believe that freedom of expression and academic freedom must be jealously guarded."

As you are both well aware, The FXI has failed to live up to such ideals,

On numerous occasions FIX THE FXI has drawn your attention to censorship in Iran and this has only been met by silence on your behalf. You have even failed to support women rights activists in Iran who have been sentenced to imprisonment and flogging. Clearly, The FXI, in practice, tolerates censorship in Iran.

As a result, it is evident that The FXI has extremely ambivalent attitudes about freedom of expression. Unfortunately, FIX THE FXI has to conclude that the sentiment reflected in the petition is based on a narrow anti-US agenda.

This "ideological exclusion" on behalf of The FXI re censorship In Iran is, therefore, a clear reflection of The FXI's partisan politics !

viva etcblacklisted etc.

THE FXI PETITION

Dear Condoleezza RiceSecretary of StateUnited States of America

On your watch, the State Department has helped to resurrect the discredited practice of ideological exclusion, the practice of denying visas to non-citizens whose politics the government disfavors.

This policy has led to a number of unjust exclusions, including most recently, that of South African academic and human rights activist Professor Adam Habib.

Censoring ideas at the borders is toxic for academic freedom and freedom of speech. We believe that it certainly is a violation of US First Amendment rights. If you believe that the United States should remain a vibrant place for the exchange of ideas where political discourse is not just welcome, but encouraged I call on you to end the policy of ideological exclusion immediately and grant Adam Habib a visa today.

I do not tolerate the censorship of ideas in any country and believe that freedom of expression and academic freedom must be jealously guarded.

Saturday, November 10, 2007DELARAM ALI AND NA'EEM JEENAH.

FIX THE FXI is calling upon Na'eem Jeenah (director of the Freedom of Expression Institute) to demand the immediate release of Delaram Ali in Iran.

Na'eem Jeenah is particularly interested in "Islamic Feminism' and has produced a MA political science thesis on the subject so he should, of course, be demanding the release of a 24 yrs old Iranian woman who is fighting for women's rights.

Delaram Ali has been sentenced in Iran to a 2yrs 6mths prison sentence and a flogging for campaigning for women's rights.

In the circumstances Na'eem Jeenah and Jane Duncan of The Freedom of Expression Institute should immediately ask deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad to contact the Iranian ambassador with regard the imprisonment and flogging of Delaram Ali.

Na'eem Jeenah is also interested in Islamic jurisprudence and he should immediately consider whether a "flogging" is an appropriate punishment.

If both Jane Duncan and Na'eem Jeenah remain silent, it will be further evidence that the organization that they represent should be renmamed The Freedom of Censorship Institute.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

The Media Review Network has still not written a word, or included a news item, about the Arafat demo massacre in Gaza.

It is clear evidence that The MRN's commitment to Hamas has, when a "problematic" story arises ( i.e Hamas massacring Fatah at a peaceful rally in Gaza), actually left The MRN speechless.

The MRN, and asssociated No 1 fan, Ronno Einstein ( Minister of Intelligence), have found that the realities of the political dynamics in the region, is too much to comprehend. The MRN / Ronno "brain", together with sites like The Electronic Intifada, can't handle it. Silence prevails on the latter website as well.

I conclude that a blind faith in Hamas leaves no room for a proper debate/ discourse.

I wonder, however, if The Mail and Guardian or The Weekender will now ask Iqbal Jassat (MRN) to write an article about the Gaza massacre ?? Further evidence that propaganda, rather than proper analysis, prevails in The South African press.

In the light of the above, The Freedom of Expression Institute and the South African press, should start to re-evaluate their own relationships with The MRN. Uncritical subservience, on behalf of The FXI and The South African press, does little to foster freedom of expression in this country.

Is The Freedom of Expression Institute really part of Mbeki's masquerade?

Is The FXI "weeping crocodile tears and pretending to be as holy as The Bible"?

Does The FXI have the guts to stand up to literary intimidation from The President ?

Are there any poets at The Freedom of Expression Institute, who could rise to President Mbeki's challenge and compose their own version of Shelley's "Mask of Anarchy"?

Mbeki writes in the latest ANC newsletter:

"Near enough two centuries ago, the English poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, composed the famous poem, "The Mask of Anarchy", to denounce the massacre of working people at Peterloo, England, in 1819.In many instances, the answering of the questions we have listed has produced the ghastly masquerade of which Shelley wrote. This is a masquerade of canards paraded by people who disguise their purposes by wearing ermined gowns, by weeping crocodile tears, by pretending to be as holy as the Bible, and by giving themselves a cloak of majesty even to the point of clothing this in pretensions of divinity."

The literary President also writes:

"Media freedom in danger?Or take another more recent example, this being an attempt to legitimise canards by claiming that press freedom is under threat. A newspaper receives and keeps stolen property, namely, private medical records. It then proceeds to publish articles it claims are based on these records.In this regard we must bear in mind a number of facts. Theft is a crime. Receipt of stolen goods is a crime. Unauthorised ownership of private medical records is a crime. Publication of such records without the consent of the person concerned is a crime.For these reasons, the police institute an investigation to respond to the crimes of theft and receipt of stolen property. The newspaper in question then publishes entirely false reports that some among its staff are about to be arrested, that our government has instructed the law-enforcement agencies to find as much 'dirt' as they can about some of the journalists working for the newspaper, and that these agencies are now 'spying' on these journalists.To justify criminal misconduct of all sorts and dissuade the law-enforcement agencies from doing their work mandated by the Constitution and the law, the newspaper cries out in a loud voice - the constitutionally guaranteed media freedom is under threat!In this instance the freedom we have achieved is obviously interpreted as the freedom to do anything and everything the media chooses to do to advance its agenda, with no regard to our Constitution and our laws - including the right to peddle canards all in the interest of entrenching democracy in our country! And once again, this strange claim has its adherents among some in the international community, including and especially some in the British and US media."

NB: THE PRESIDENT DOES NOT ADDRESS THE QUESTION.."ARE THE SUNDAY TIMES ALLEGATIONS WITH REGARD TO MANTO ACTUALLY TRUE ?"

At the end of the ANC newsletter, Mbeki writes: "I do not know if we have the poets to compose their own version of Shelley's Mask of Anarchy, to unmask the ghastly masquerade of fraud, hypocrisy, anarchy and destruction, which seek to legitimise themselves by claiming to be the sentinels who are standing on guard to protect our freedom and democracy!"

Well Mr President, one poet has risen to the challenge. The following is The Blacklisted Dictator's version of Shelley's "Mask of Anarchy". written in Johannesburg, Nov 2007...188 years after the massacre at Peterloo..

"ANC ANARCHY"

I met Murder on the way - He had a mask like Mugabe Very smooth he looked, yet grim Seven South African government ministers followed him.

Next came Fraud, and she drove on, Like an ANC politician, a Porsche Cayenne Manto's tears, for she wept well, Turned to HIV as they fell. And the little Aids orphans, who Round her feet played to and fro, Thinking every tear a gem, Had their brains knocked out by them.

Clothed with the Bible, as with light, And the Marxists of the night, Like Mbeki, next, Hypocrisy On a crocodile rode by

And many more Destructions played In this ghastly African masquerade, All disguised, even to the eyes, Like Bishops, lawyers, MPs and spies.....

'Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number - Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you - Ye are many - Mbeki's crew are few.'

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Does The Freedom of Expression Institute know why the Media Review Network website has, so far, remained silent about the appalling Hamas attack on Arafat supporters in Gaza ? It is an important story and the MRN "omission" does have the smell of censorship... a whiff that I know you abhor.

It is obvious that there is a close link between The FXI and The MRN and I wondered whether you have discussed this "omission".

For the record, does The FXI hold regular meetings with The MRN ? If it doesn't, why does The MRN write on The FXI's behalf ?

viva etcblacklisted etc

ps.The small terrorist group, Islamic Jihad, which has clashed occasionally with Hamas but shares its ideology, condemned Hamas for the violence.

"Despite all of the political differences...it's forbidden and taboo to open fire randomly on a mass popular demonstration," the group said Tuesday.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Perhaps Jane Duncan and Na'eem Jeenah of The Freedom of Expression Institute can kindly inform FIX THE FXI what they think about the following article written by Melanie Phillips:

The Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, Mohammed Abdul Bari, has repeated in an interview with the Daily Telegraph the thrust of remarks he made last year, also to the Telegraph, that Britain should be Islamised. The first time he said this, there wasn’t a peep of reaction. This time, there’s been a bit of a furore. Which is progress.

Much of the latest interview was the usual whingeing and fanatical stuff. Apparently there is an argument for stoning in Britain. And of course, it is not insignificant that Bari chairs the East London mosque, in whose bookshop the recent Policy Exchange report found dangerous incitement on sale but which Bari does not condemn and whose sale says he will do nothing to stop. The most wicked part of his remarks was his comparison of Britain with Nazi Germany (a comparison he has also made before):Every society has to be really careful so the situation doesn't lead us to a time when people's minds can be poisoned as they were in the 1930s. If your community is perceived in a very negative manner, and poll after poll says that we are alienated, then Muslims begin to feel very vulnerable. We are seen as creating problems, not as bringing anything and that is not good for any society.Of course, it is the Islamists who have the fascist agenda in wanting to destroy British values and make this country submit to Islam. Bari is thus exhibiting the classic Islamist trick of taking aberrant behaviour by certain Muslims and ascribing it to their victims — the trick that is pulled from Israel to Islamabad and from Dewsbury to Damascus. But Bari is here pulling another common Islamist trick that has not been commented upon. He is taking a ball that has been rolled to him by liberal opinion and running with it. For the air is currently thick, is it not, with denunciations of the government’s proposed extension to the 28 day detention limit for terrorist suspects on the grounds that it would spell the end of the liberty for which this country fought Hitler etc. What is not realised is that, far from such measures turning us into a fascist state, such liberals themselves are providing Islamists like Bari with the weapons with which to undermine our defences against being turned into a fascist state.

On Saturday morning, BBC Radio Four’s Today programme (0832) featured a discussion about these matters between the MCB’s Assistant Secretary-General, Inayat Bunglawala, and the former chairman of the Joint Intelligence committee, Sir Paul Lever. Asked about Bari’s comparison between Britain and Nazi Germany, Bunglawala immediately responded:He didn’t say that. When it was pointed out that he had in fact said precisely that, Bunglawala observed:He made a fair point. Just as in the 1930s the Jewish community in Germany was collectively vilified, and we saw what happened, I think we need to be careful not to allow the terror threat to lead us to make generalisations about entire communities.The Jewish community in Germany in the 1930s was not simply ‘collectively vilified’. It was singled out for genocide. The collective vilification was part of that process of mass murder and ethnic obliteration. The comparison made by Bunglawala between Nazi Germany and Britain’s attitude towards its Muslim community is obscene.

When it was further put to him that many listeners had rung in to say, a propos Bari’s remarks, that in the 1930s there had been no Jews — no ‘minority of Jewish groups’ — committing acts of terrorism and so the comparison was odious, Bunglawala replied:No that’s true; and today we don’t see the entire Muslim community engaged in acts of terrorism. But no-one has ever said this; what is always said is that a minority of British Muslims are thus engaged. No-one has ever ‘demonised’ all British Muslims, nor even the majority. Bunglawala went on:What you had in the 1930s was that all sorts of popular fictions were being spread about the Jewish community: they were in control of money in Nazi Germany, they were responsible for all the ills that were occurring in Germany, they were made into folk devils. And I think the danger is that the word Muslim in the UK is becoming synonymous with bad news.Can hypocrisy be any more brazen? This is the same Bunglawala who, as I reported here, wrote some years ago:The Jews consider themselves to be God’s chosen people - although the blessed prophet Jesus called them the children of the Devil (John 8:44) - and so can do just whatever the hell they like.He cited claims that the Zionist movement wasat the core of international banking and commerceand observed:Nonsense? You be the judge…The chairman of Carlton Communications is Michael Green of the Tribe of Judah. He has joined an elite club whose members include fellow Jews Michael Grade [then the chief executive of Channel 4 and later BBC chairman] and Alan Yentob[then BBC2 controller and friend of Salman Rushdie].The three are reported to be ‘close friends’ so that’s what they mean by a ‘free media.’ According to a report by the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, Islam in Britain, he also wrote that Hamas was anauthentically Islamic movementand a source of comfort for Muslims all over the world.The report went on: In the same article, Bunglawala supported the radical Wahabbi Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia, Salman al-’Awadh and Safar al-Hawali (later linked to Osama bin Laden) and the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria. In other issues of Trends he attacked the Bin-’Ali regime in Tunisia while supporting the Islamist Egyptian cleric ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Rahman, spiritual leader of the Egyptian Islamic jihad terrorist group, who was arrested by the US authorities for alleged links to the first bombing of the Twin Towers. Bunglawala claimed ‘Umar was simply ‘calling on Muslims to fulfil their duty to Allah and to fight against oppression and oppressors everywhere’. This looks like clear agreement with the violent Islamist call for jihad by terror anywhere and at any time. And as the Telegraph also reported: In January 1993, Mr Bunglawala wrote a letter to Private Eye, the satirical magazine, in which he called the blind Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman ‘courageous’ - just a month before he bombed the World Trade Center in New York. After Rahman’s arrest in July that year, Mr Bunglawala said that it was probably only because of his ‘calling on Muslims to fulfil their duty to Allah and to fight against oppression and oppressors everywhere’. Five months before 9/11, Mr Bunglawala also circulated writings of Osama bin Laden, who he regarded as a ‘freedom fighter’, to hundreds of Muslims in Britain.Meanwhile, as I reported here, Bunglawala told me on the Moral Maze last July that he was certainly committed to turning Britain into an Islamic state. By peaceful means, of course.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

FIX THE FXI calls upon that The Freedom of Expression Institute to sign the "Change For Equality" petition.

PROTEST THE JAILING OF IRANIAN WOMEN ACTIVISTS

The Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP) is asking you to join its letter writing campaign in support of women activists who were sentenced to prison in April - for organising a women's protest in Tehran.

The women activists had organised a peaceful protest in Tehran in June 2006 to demand equal rights for women. Under the guise of "endangering national security", Fariba Davoudi Mohajer was sentenced on 18 April to four years in prison, three of which are suspended. Parvin Ardalan and Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani were sentenced to three years (two and a half years suspended). Sussan Tahmasebi received two years (one and a half years suspended). The women will be required to serve the suspended sentences if "found guilty of another crime" during the next five years.

Human Rights Watch reports that an additional woman was sentenced on 24 April - Shahla Entesari was given three years in prison. Earlier in the month, Azadeh Forghani, also a women's rights activist, received a suspended sentence of two years for "acting against national security by participating in an illegal gathering."

All of the women supported the recently launched "Change for Equality" campaign, an effort to collect one million signatures to protest Iran's discriminatory laws against women. The campaign seeks specific reforms, such as making women's testimony in court carry the same weight as men's, equality of inheritance rights between men and women and the elimination of polygamy.

To sign the "Change for Equality" petition and help reach the goal of one million signatures, see:- English petition: http://tinyurl.com/3bcyxy- Persian petition: http://tinyurl.com/39yeej

To protest the sentencing of the activists, write to the following people: - Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, The Office of the Supreme Leader: info@leader.ir- Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, Head of the Judiciary: irjpr@iranjudiciary.com- M. Javad Zarif, Ambassador to the United Nations: jzarif@un.int